Help Me
Help Me is a 6th season episode of House which was first aired on May 17, 2010. It is the Season 6 finale. Cuddy, House and members of the team join forces with a search-and-rescue team to provide much-needed medical attention at the scene of a crane collapse. However, when House finds a woman with her leg pinned by debris, he refuses to let them perform an amputation to allow her to be removed despite the danger of a further collapse. Recap House finally gives Cuddy the copy of her grandfather's book he bought years ago. However, Cuddy is rushing to the scene of a crane collapse to render medical aid. House soon follows on his motorcycle and meets up with her. The scene is chaos with rubble all around and emergency medical personnel all over the site. House starts examining some of the trauma victims. He finds one patient with a skull fracture, but her Glasgow coma score is a fairly high 11 - she can wait for treatment. However, House notices the next patient has atheroslerotic embolyii - although his wounds aren't serious, he will never survive surgery. He wants Cuddy to give him lower priority, but she asks if it isn't that his shoes were just too tight. However, he points out the patient shows signs of being a heavy smoker - he's only going to waste an ambulance, a surgeon and an ICU bed. Cuddy agrees. The crane operator has survived and tells the rescue team that he fell asleep moving the load. However, House examines him and finds caffeine pills on him. The operator also says he drank coffee although he usually doesn't - he was working on little sleep. House figures that the operator did not fall asleep but passed out due to a neurological disorder. House wants to go back to the hospital and get his team together, but Cuddy says that House can't go - Foreman and the rest of the team have to treat the operator themselves. The hospital is flooded with trauma patients. Wilson is in the emergency room treating patients when House calls. After talking to Wilson, he hears tapping nearby. He goes to investigate and hears more tapping. he calls for help. The emergency personnel come to help, but they can't hear anything. House insists he heard something, but the emergency personnel are too busy to look in the area. House starts tapping some of the pipes and tracing them. He starts poking around and finally crawls under some rubble. He calls out and goes in further. He crawls in even further and starts investigating. He finally finds a panel which he knocks out. He continues forward and finally someone grabs his cane. A woman is underneath. House starts examining the woman, but she's too concerned about a birthday present she was supposed to get. She says her name is Hanna, and she knows what day it is. House tries to pull her out, but her leg is trapped. House wants to go get help, but she screams not to be left in the dark. House calls Foreman about the crane operator. He asks what would cause his syncope. The patient is asleep despite taking a lot of caffeine. Thirteen is missing. House orders an MRI to look for brain damage. House has led the team to the trapped woman, but they are having trouble treating her and they don't have enough medical knowledge to treat her. House crawls back in to insert an intravenous tube in her tibia (Quoting House, "its almost hollow, feeds into her venous system."). The emergeny personnel can't lift the concrete trapping her. House talks about the gift with Cuddy, but she doesn't want to talk about it. She says there is no problem with Lucas. She admits to House that she just got engaged to Lucas and she thought it was an engagement present. House thinks she was hiding it, but she says she just put it in her desk for safekeeping. The crane operator is getting an MRI, but he's more worried about the other patients. However, when they remove him from the MRI, he starts bleeding from his nose and eyes. The emergency personnel can't lift the concrete trapping Hanna because there is too much rubble on top of it. Cuddy tries to talk her into an amputation because by the time they clear the rubble, she will be too ill to be treated. However, House is opposed. Cuddy points out crush syndrome is likely if they don't free her soon. House wants the emergency personnel to keep digging instead. The fire captain is that there will be further collapse or gas explosions. However, Cuddy finally sides with the patient. House promisses he won't let them cut off the leg. Foreman calls with news about the operator - his MRI was fine, but he's bleeding from his eyes and nose. Taub thinks it might just be from the trauma. Thirteen shows up - she was away from her pager and phone. House orders an x-ray veniogram even though the others want to do safer tests. Hanna has a panic attack and she wants House to return. Cuddy tells him to go back to keep her calm enough to treat. House returns and starts treating the patient. He gives her his phone so she can call her husband while he takes her blood pressure. It has spiked because she has started bleeding from her leg wound. He tells her not to do anything to raise her blood pressure. She asks what's wrong with his leg, and he says a crane fell on it. He won't pray with the patient. She says she doesn't believe in God either. The team does the veniogram. Taub realizes Thirteen wasn't at physiotherapy, but she says her day was changed. He says he's just worried about her, but she says she's okay. They start trying to lift the beam and House warns her it's going to be painful. However, as they try to remove her, there is a secondary collapse. House finds himself covered in debris. He starts calling out for Hanna. The fireman calls for assistance and gets in touch with the emergency team. House and the fireman manage to free themselves. One of Hanna's lungs has collapsed and House has to reinflate it. House leaves because he needs treatment. The crane operator now has a fever and a sub-arachnoid bleed. The veniogram was clean. House orders a lumbar puncture. The fireman reports that there is more debris on top of Hanna now and it will take at least five hours. Cuddy insists on amputation but House has a plan to treat the crush syndrome to keep her going. Cuddy thinks its crazy, but House insists he's the only one who knows what a leg is worth. He tells the fire captain he will testify on Hanna's behalf if they amputate because it's his decision, not Cuddy's. Cuddy asks to speak to House privately. She thinks it's about her. They get into an argument about her relationship with Lucas. She finally walks away, but turns and asks why he's going to risk the patient's life to save her leg. She reminds him that saving his leg didn't help his life. She's going to convince Hanna to agree to the amputation and asks House to stay out of it. However, Hanna won't agree to it. She says she's not in pain. House finally shows up and tells Hanna he agrees with Cuddy - her time has run out. He tells her about how he got his leg disability. They did risky surgery to save his leg, but it's missing a huge piece of muscle and is barely usable. It made him miserable and alone. She can still have a life, but trying to save the leg will mean she will lose it. She finally agrees. House tells Cuddy he will do the surgery. House gives her a painkiller, but can't give her anasthetic. He tells her about the procedure and what she can expect and that it will hurt like nothing she's ever felt before. He grabs a scalpel to start cutting through the skin and muscle, then switches to a bone saw. Hanna starts screaming. However, she's free in no time and she's taken away to be treated for shock and to be rushed to the hospital. Her husband arrives on site and starts reassuring her. House gets into the ambulance with them for the trip to the hospital. Foreman calls with more news. The operator is in a coma, but the lumbar puncture was clean. They tell House a police officer is now with the patient. House realizes the patient didn't have anything wrong with his head, the problem was in his spine - an arachnoid cyst on the lower spine spiked the pressure in his cerebro-spinal fluid. However, all of a sudden, Hanna's blood pressure starts dropping. House realizes she has a clot in her lungs and he has to remove it. He administers a blood thinner despite the risk of bleeding from the amputation. However, it has no effect on the clot. House realizes it's a fat embolism from the amputation. There's nothing House can do. She arrives at the hospital DOA. Foreman trys to console House. There was no way to prevent the fat embolism - she would have died even if they had done the amputation in the operating room. However, House screams at Foreman that he knows he did everything right - knowing he did doesn't make him feel any better. Foreman tells him he shouldn't be alone and that he's bleeding. House orders him to get out of his way. Taub finds that Thirteen is asking for time off and asks why. She admits she's not okay, but doesn't tell him anything. House enters his dark home, and limps to his bathroom, where he switches the dim lights on. He clasps both hands either side of the mirror, before looking at himself; his face pained and on the brink of tears, and then he sees his dead patient's face looking at him when she died in the ambulance. There is a pause, then he rips the mirror off of the wall, revealing a small cavity with two bottles of Vicodin hidden inside. He carefully takes them out, before he slowly sits on the bathroom floor; looking at the bottles in his hand, before opening one, and letting two fall out into the palm of his hand. He begins to shake as he goes through a powerful internal struggle, about whether or not to take them since he believes he has nothing else, taking what Cuddy said before in the episode about him being alone and having nothing left in his life. Before he comes to a decision, Cuddy appears through the shadows, to House's surprise. She mentions that he needs to re-bandage his shoulder, which is still bleeding slighty from the last time she bandaged it a few hours prior at the crash site. He asks her if she is going to grab the pills from his hand, and she says no; It is his choice alone if he wants to go back on drugs. House looks surprised at her unexpected answer, before saying he finds it hard to see the downside of not taking them. Cuddy mentions Lucas, the man she told House she was engaged to prior in the episode, and House interrupts her, thinking she was going to tell him that she's pregnant or has had a quickie marriage in secret; but she interjects by saying she ended it with Lucas. Shocked, House simply looks up at her, eyes wide. She then begins to explain how she feels stuck, unable to move forward even though she is trying to. Because even though she had a fiancee and a new home and her baby, she never truly forgot about House; she couldn't stop thinking about him. She asks him, bluntly, if they could 'work' as a couple. House asks her if she thinks he can fix himself, and she says she doesn't know. House then says that he is the most screwed up person in the world, and Cuddy tells him that she knows, then she says that she loves him; even though she wishes she didn't, she knows now that she can't help it, and she can't ignore her feelings any longer. There is silence, as House looks at her, then debates what to do, before he tries to pick himself up off the floor, but is unable to because he is in pain, so he reaches out his hand, and Cuddy helps him up. House towers over her, as he steps up to her, and gently kisses her on the lips; compared to his hallucination, which was a more passionate and firery kiss, this was subtle and sweet. While making comparisons to the prior hallucination, it might be worthwhile to note that Cuddy has had a significant change of state (i don't love you, i do love you) and that throughout the episode, Cuddy is wearing a silver watch on her left wrist, which is suspiciously absent (or appears to be) during the end sequence. In counterpoint, comparing the clock on the wall when house calls Wilson to House's watch during the end sequence (right after he drops the pills) there is only about a possible hour of discrepancy. House pulls away, and asks Cuddy how does he know it's not another hallucination like last year, she simply asks if he took the Vicodin, and he replies no. She then looks at him with a sweet smile, and declares that they're okay then. House smiles softly, and replies; "Yeah." House then leans in once again, and kisses her as the camera focuses on their hands which intertwine, and then the episode ends. Trivia The entire episode was filmed on multiple Canon EOS 5D Mark IIs. "Help Me" is a famous song by Joni Mitchell. The previous season's finale, Both Sides Now, was named after a Joni Mitchell song.